At least he sort of looks like Winslow.....but I think calling him a "classic" Super-Man villain might be stretching it. At least it's not the child killing version....though Geoff Johns seems to have sort of retconned that away...

Until the retcon came and it was revealed that it was really a robot (that went rogue, of course) that the real Toyman made in case he was captured.

I know I might be in the minority, but I actually liked that version of the character. Mostly because it took what was previous a somewhat silly character and gave him a much more serious tone.

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Not to mention they did an arc after that in which Cat almost killed him for killing her son, but chose not to do so. I believe Super-Man was standing by, but made no attempt to stop her; he would, of course, had acted to save Winslow's life had she actually fired the gun.

The retcon was somewhat stupid, IMO, even though it was written by Johns; it had every version of Toyman (including Hiro) be a robot created by him. That's what I took away from it, anyway, which doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. I don't see why they felt the need to "redeem" Toyman by retconning the "killer" aspect, as I believe they used it to good effect until he died, IIRC, trying to save some children he had kidnapped.

Until the retcon came and it was revealed that it was really a robot (that went rogue, of course) that the real Toyman made in case he was captured.

I know I might be in the minority, but I actually liked that version of the character. Mostly because it took what was previous a somewhat silly character and gave him a much more serious tone.

Click to expand...

Not to mention they did an arc after that in which Cat almost killed him for killing her son, but chose not to do so. I believe Super-Man was standing by, but made no attempt to stop her; he would, of course, had acted to save Winslow's life had she actually fired the gun.

The retcon was somewhat stupid, IMO, even though it was written by Johns; it had every version of Toyman (including Hiro) be a robot created by him. That's what I took away from it, anyway, which doesn't really make a lot of sense to me. I don't see why they felt the need to "redeem" Toyman by retconning the "killer" aspect, as I believe they used it to good effect until he died, IIRC, trying to save some children he had kidnapped.

Click to expand...

My only problem with the child-killing Toyman from a practical standpoint was that it puts Superman in the Joker dilemma. Here is a villain guaranteed to kill innocents and basically guaranteed to escape any attempts at incarceration and like as not to laugh off all but the most draconian attempts at rehab. We know Superman can't kill him, and to be true to his new motif, eventually, kids must die at his hands. An unresolvable loop of pain and posters wondering 'WTF doesn't he kill/maim/lobotomize Toyman?'